“Although some of the growth of the Hispanic DRTV
marketplace mirrors the mainstream trends, the domestic
Hispanic market doesn’t always follow the same customs
that the English-language market does,” says Knight.
“Successful marketers pay attention to all the details of
what distinguishes these two cultures — including such
backroom support as telemarketing, fulfillment, distribution and payment options — that recognize the unique-ness of the Hispanic population.”

That could mean offering a full range of payment
options as an alternative to major credit cards, for example, or acknowledging that while this audience speaks
Spanish, there are regional and national nuances. “It’s
imperative to adjust the back-end services to reflect the
cultural preferences of the Hispanic audience,” says
Knight.

Marketers should also know that Hispanics enjoy using
the Internet, says Nicole Ali, vice president of international sales at Northern Response International Ltd., in
Toronto. She says recent reports show that more than 15
million U.S. Hispanics are online — an increase of more
than 1 million in just the past year.

And they’re not just visiting Hispanic Web sites, says
Ali. “They’re bicultural surfers, and they’re quickly outnumbering non-Hispanics who are online in the U.S.”
Taking that cue, Ali says brand marketers (like Reebok,
Toyota, Verizon, Microsoft, Myspace.com, You Tube and
Yahoo!) and DR marketers alike are jumping into the fray
by building their brands around the community, and
building a community around the brand. “That’s the
Hispanic way,” she adds.

Jim Brennan, president of Baltimore-based Brennan
Response, also sees the Internet as a big opportunity for
DR marketers looking to tap the U.S. Hispanic market.
“In the past, a lot of advertisers assumed that it wasn’t a
worthwhile venue because Internet penetration was low
among Hispanics,” says Brennan, who adds that the sentiment is changing. “As marketers become aware that
Hispanics are, in fact, online, there will be a sea change in
how they handle some of their online efforts, particularly
when it comes to creating sites with multilingual capabilities.”

But sometimes it takes more than that, says Brennan,
who sees too many marketers get so “keyed up” over the
Hispanic population growth that they neglect to do their
homework. “When you’re approaching this market, it
behooves you to take your time, think and do your
research about which individuals within this whole spectrum of people is really your best target, and what the best
approach is,” says Brennan. “Unfortunately, that’s not
something American companies as a rule are very good at,
yet it’s what they need to do to succeed in this market.”

Doing Business in Latin America

Robin Behar has been working the DRTV business in
Latin America for more than 10 years. Along the way, this
managing partner at Los Angeles-based In Clover
Marketing, says she’s seen a lot of shifts and new trends
come to the forefront of this multi-faceted, often-complex
market.

Most recently, Behar has seen a shift to more and more
local products. “Distributors are growing each and every
year and, as new media opens up for them, they need more
and more campaigns to fill that airtime,” says Behar.
“They continue to test as many U.S.-based shows as possible, but as a business decision, they have also focused on
identifying locally made products and shows — which can
often be as profitable or more than an imported show or
product.”

Stan Bruckheim, president of Laguna Hills, Calif.-based PanLatino TV/ PanEuropean TV, agrees. “With a
fairly stable availability of TV time, growth has had to
come from maximizing other revenue streams, including

“As marketers become aware that Hispanics are,
in fact, online, there will be a sea change in how
they handle some of their online efforts, particularly when it comes to creating sites with multilingual capabilities.”

catalog, Internet, retail, print, outbound telemarketing
and even radio in some markets,” he says. “Distributors are
also branching out into creating their own products and
producing local shows, some testing U.S. Hispanic media
and others exporting their local shows globally.”

And while business shifts are inevitable, Behar says the
basic tenets of success in Latin American DRTV haven’t
changed much over the past decade. To do business there,
she says marketers must focus on: 1) the population, and
2) the media environment. She sees Mexico and Brazil as
two of the markets most apt to produce “volume” in terms
of sales/units sold, but points out that marketers are also
reaching success in other areas of the continent.

“If you can’t make it work in Mexico or Brazil, that’s
not to say Argentina, Chile or Ecuador won’t work,” says
Behar, who urges suppliers to get their products tested by
as many distributors as possible “because a few small countries can total the sum of one of the larger markets.”